Cycle to Accelerate

"Cycle to Accelerate" book bundle synopsis
Van Bommel and Van Engelen published four books in exactly four years in the Netherlands, on IT and management. Now these books are also available in English. In this new era of everyone being connected to everyone else, with ever greater ease of access to information, with new technology businesses overthrowing the old company hierarchies as if it were child's play, information technology turns out to be the driving force behind sustainable societal growth. Many of the old organisations seem stuck in old structures, old methods and outdated IT systems. Digital transformation is urgently needed and requires a new management style that leaves no room for plans set in stone. Innovation is done by cycling, step by step (one pedal push at a time) while learning from small mistakes and adjusting whenever necessary.

Part 1 The Art of Making IT Work for You
This book offers solutions to IT problems. It is written for people who deal with IT on a daily basis: CEOs in the process of computerizing their organisations, government policy makers exploring the possibilities, IT professionals who want to specialise in solutions, and IT students who want to get to know the world in which they will seek employment.
In recent decades, a lot has gone wrong in many IT projects. In governmental as well as in the non-governmental sector on a global scale, many (tens of) billions of dollars have been thrown around without achieving any worthwhile results, but also in business projects, things quite often go wrong. What is the cause of it? And, above all: how can we find a solution to overcome it?
Using 21 problem areas as starting points, the authors take stock of potential improvements in IT and IT policy. They also offer solutions to all 21 issues, giving readers a clear impression of what they should focus on over the next few years.

Part 2 Why Managers Should Learn to Cycle
In this book, the authors compare the practice of making detailed plans for organisations to billiards and cycling. All the information the planners have is hidden in one thrust of their cue, even though the laws of physics dictate that the exact result of three rolling, bumping balls will be different every time. In physics this is called the three-particle problem.
In the business world we can be faced with maybe a hundred different particles that affect each other. No wonder then that managerial plans hardly ever work out as intended. The analogy of the physics of billiards and cycling teaches us why we manage our organisations too rigidly. For a lot of managers, IT is a tough issue that they'd love to avoid.
Many an administrator meets his Waterloo in IT when it comes to keeping control of the organisation. But there's no need for that. All they have to do is read this book. We can achieve much more by loosening the reins, not by frantically trying to gain control and stay in control.

Part 3 IT as a Raw Material for a Sustainable Economy and Society
This book is about the growing importance of information, and access to information, in a sustainable society. Sustainability is a hot theme in management, and it's there to stay. But we should all be careful not to follow a theme that we barely understand.
In this book we define sustainability in a practical way, through modern capital theories. And we show the crucial role played by information in becoming, and staying, sustainable. IT plays an important role there.
IT makes an intrinsically sustainable contribution and helps us do a lot more with the available capital. The re-use of business logic and IT logic adds to this. An automation process does not necessarily mean you have to reinvent the wheel. That wheel already exists.

Part 4 Moving Towards a Sustainable Digital Transformat...